That’s how long it took for Jefferson H.S. to discover that the majority of its football players were ineligible. Scheduled to play Campus Magnet on Saturday morning, the school’s administration informed the PSAL on Friday that it would be unable to field a team and forfeited the contest.

Yesterday, head coach Keith Merriman was wondering why it happened.

“When I think about it, I get real angry,” said Merriman, who has been head coach at Jefferson for 15 years. “As far as I knew, we were ready to play.”

At the last minute, the school administration felt differently. A person in the athletic director’s office said the school was “looking into” the situation before abruptly hanging up.

The situation is reminiscent of several that occurred a year ago, when the early part of the season was marred by teams that weren’t ready to play. While the Jefferson problem may be worked out, the PSAL is not going to be especially patient.

“The athletes are entitled to play on quality teams,” said Kevin F. Gill, Executive Director for the PSAL. “If we need to reduce the number from 42 schools to 36 participating for the students to have a worthwhile high school football experience, we are prepared to effect those changes.”

Merriman is still trying to sort it out.

“I’m trying to roll with the punches, but it’s hard,” said Merriman, whose Orange Wave went 2-6 a year ago. “They said there were problems with some of the summer school classes. We did everything we were supposed to do. Kids went to summer school. I still don’t know who isn’t eligible and what the reasons are.”

Throughout the nearly three weeks of practice before the first weekend of the PSAL season, Merriman said he had upwards of 30 players on his roster. PSAL football commissioner Al Arbuse saw the team last week and thought everything looked fine. That was before the eligibility issue became a concern. He will visit the school again today.

“We’re going to have to go through all the records and paperwork to see just who is able to play,” Arbuse said. “We can’t do anything else until then.”

If the players who are ineligible were disqualified for academic reasons, Jefferson’s season will be in jeopardy. There is no way to become academically eligible during the season. The team is scheduled to face Madison this Saturday and title contender Canarsie the following week.

In the meantime, Merriman said he plans to continue to run his squad the same way he has been. After informing his players on Friday that they would not be able to play the next day, he scheduled practice, instead.

“It was hard on the kids,” Merriman said. “When they came on Saturday, their minds weren’t in it.”

Despite the problems, Merriman said he felt good about the future of his team.

“I’m optimistic we’ll be able to work all this out and be able to play this week,” Merriman said. “But I’m extremely angry this happened.”